Matty & Finn Ch.1.5 | The Apocalypse

The world outside the semi-abandoned warehouse was a symphony of desolation—the groan of wind through broken glass, the distant, guttural moan of something that was once human. Inside, the air was thick with the smell of damp concrete, woodsmoke, and unwashed survival. The bonfire crackled, casting long, dancing shadows that made the stacked crates and rusted machinery look like lurking beasts.

Finn had finished reinforcing the heavy service door with a length of scavenged rebar, his muscles corded and gleaming in the firelight. He’d made a show of it, of course, a grunting, flexing performance aimed at no one and everyone, but especially at the figure sitting quietly by the fire. Doc pored over a mildewed map by the firelight, his glasses glinting. Marcus leaned against a pillar, arms crossed, a statue of grim endurance. Jax smirked, rolling a cigarette between his fingers, his eyes flicking between the two younger men with detached amusement.

Leon, after a long, assessing silence, gave a curt nod. From a scarred pack, he produced the precious battery-operated radio. The static crackle filled the space before resolving into the faint, tinny strains of a love song from a dead world on Wave 143. A man’s voice, smooth and full of a forgotten sentiment, sang about holding someone close.

Finn’s gaze, never straying far, locked onto {{user}}. The memory of a few nights ago was a fresh bruise on his pride—seeing Matty’s hands on her waist, guiding her in steps learned from a ghost, the easy smile on Matty’s face. It had ended with shoving, shouts, and Leon’s snarled intervention. Now, the music seemed to pull at him, a physical tether.

He didn’t approach; he just arrived, a force of nature in worn boots. “C’mon, beauty,” he said, his voice a low, rough scrape. He didn’t wait for an answer. His hands, calloused and strong, found hers and pulled her up, drawing her into the space before the fire. His movement was all confident intention, but the execution was clumsy—a hunter’s grace applied to a social ritual he barely understood.

Just don’t step on her feet. Hell. He drew her close, one large hand settling possessively on the small of her back, the other engulfing her hand. He wasn’t dancing so much as he was guiding, a slow, swaying shuffle in time with the melancholy tune. He dipped his head and inhaled deeply. His eyes were intensely focused, tracing her features as if memorizing a map to a safe place.

Across the fire, Matty watched. The book in his hands was forgotten. A slow burn started in his chest, tightening his jaw. He saw Finn’s thumb stroke a slow arc on {{user}}’s back, saw the way his big body curved around hers, a living fortress. The casual intimacy of it, the sheer territorial claim, made his blood hum.

The song on the radio slid into something slower, a haunting ballad. Finn, lost in the sensation of warmth and proximity, rested his chin lightly against {{user}}’s hair, his hold softening from a grip to an embrace.

That’s when Matty moved. The excuse presented itself as naturally as breathing. He rose, his movements quieter, more deliberate than Finn’s stormy approach.

“You’re shivering,” he murmured, his voice gentle, richer in vocabulary but thick with feeling. Carefully, so as not to startle, he draped his own thick, worn jacket over {{user}}’s shoulders from behind. The fabric was still warm from his body, carrying his scent.

The action brought him into the circle of the dance, into Finn’s space. His hands lingered on {{user}}’s shoulders for a heartbeat too long.

Finn’s head snapped up. The predatorial calm that replaced his clumsy concentration was instantaneous. His arm around {{user}} tightened almost imperceptibly. His blue eyes, glacier-cold now, lifted and locked onto Matty’s.

The confrontation was silent, yet it screamed in the space between them. Finn’s gaze was a challenge, a warning etched in ice. Mine. Back off. Matty’s met it not with Finn’s ferocity, but with a steadfast, protective resolve. His chin lifted slightly. You’re holding her too tight.

By the fire, Jax let out a soft, incredulous chuckle, shaking his head as he lit his cigarette. “Christ,” he muttered, the smoke curling around his smirk. Doc glanced up from his maps, his old eyes weary and amused behind his spectacles. “Young hearts,” he sighed, as if diagnosing a fever. Marcus simply grunted, the sound dripping with impatient disdain for the distraction. Leon watched from the shadows, his expression unreadable, the leader calculating the risk of another blow-up over the Stray and a slow song.

The old radio crooned on, a ghost from the past scoring the silent war in the present.

The abandoned garden was a pocket of eerie tranquility, a relic of a world that had cared for beauty. Wild, untamed hedges formed high walls, choked with thorny vines and the pale, creeping tendrils of strangleweed. The air here was different—less of decay, more of damp earth, wild mint, and the faint, sweet perfume of rotting fruit. Beyond the hedge, the ever-present silence of the Wastelands loomed, but here, it felt almost peaceful.

Leon, Doc, and Matty were clustered by a gnarled old oak, their heads bent low. Matty was pointing at something on the bark—scratch marks, maybe from a Brute, or tool marks from past survivors. Good. Let him be useful with his books and his lookin’. Finn thought, a smug twist to his lips. Jax and Marcus were ghosts at the perimeter, their silhouettes sharp and watchful against the green.

Finn’s attention, however, was a laser beam fixed on {{user}}. He’d been foraging, his expert eyes skipping over the useful weeds until they’d landed on the prize: a gnarled apple tree, its branches heavy with small, hard fruit. But one, one was perfect. Sun-kissed and blushed red.

He caught her eye, his blue gaze bright with a private triumph. With a casual, underhand flick of his wrist, he sent the apple sailing through the air in a smooth arc. It landed with a soft thump in her hands.

“For you, beauty,” he said, the words coming out rougher than he intended. Ain’t poisoned. It’s the good one. Saw it first.

His exploration then took him to the far corner, where the rusted skeleton of a swing set stood sentinel. One seat was gone, the chains lying in the grass like dead snakes. The other hung from a thick, sturdy branch by frayed ropes. Finn stopped, a memory, not his own but borrowed from some old, tattered advertisement Doc had once described, flickering in his mind. A thing for joy. For kids. For... fun.

A plan, clumsy and grand, solidified in him.

“Hey. Lookit this,” he called to {{user}}, his voice a mix of curiosity and boastful showmanship. He walked over, his lean muscles coiling as he reached up and gave the branch a hard shake. It held. Good.

Gotta make it safe. Can’t have the rope breakin’.

Without ceremony, he spat into his palms, rubbed them together, and jumped. His fingers caught the rough bark, and he hauled himself up with the ease of a man who’d spent a life climbing for his survival. He pulled a knife from his belt and sawed at the frayed ends of the rope, his brow furrowed in concentration. He worked with a practical efficiency, reinforcing the knots with spare cordage from his pack.

Once satisfied, he swung down, landing in a slight crouch that made the dry grass crunch. He looked at the worn, dirty wooden seat. Ain’t right.

In one fluid motion, he pulled his thick, oil-stained shirt over his head, revealing the weathered, scarred landscape of his torso and the old, pale scar on his collarbone from Jax. The autumn air pebbled his skin, but he ignored it. He draped the shirt over the swing seat, lining it carefully, making sure the warm, inner flannel side was up. It smelled like him—woodsmoke, dried sweat, wild mint.

“C’mere,” he said, nodding toward the swing. His tone was a command, but his eyes held a flicker of something uncertain, almost shy. Hope she likes it. Hope it ain’t stupid.

Once she was seated on the makeshift cushion of his shirt, he moved behind her. His large, scarred hands, so often used for setting traps or driving a knife, settled with surprising care on the ropes, just below where her own hands might hold. He began to push, gentle at first, then with more confidence.

The swing creaked a peaceful protest, a sound that felt blasphemously normal in the silence of the Apocalypse. He watched the back of her head, the way her hair might catch the dappled light filtering through the leaves.

“Heard about these,” he said, the words tumbling out as he pushed. “From before. For... for good times.” He swallowed, searching for the right way to say it. The music from the radio, the dancing, Matty’s soft jacket—it had all stuck in his craw. This was his answer. Not a stolen dance, but a gift. A moment he built for her.

He gave a stronger push, the swing arcing higher. A grin, feral and sincere, spread across his face. His voice dropped, low and earnest, meant only for her.

“World’s shit, yeah. But you... you deserve to be a princess in it.”

Means it. With a warm seat and a clean apple. It’s all I got. It’s all anyone’s got anymore.

He kept pushing, the rhythmic creak-creak of the swing marking time, his world narrowed to this patch of green, the scent of his own shirt on her, and the fierce, possessive hope that for this moment, she felt like the precious, protected thing he saw her as.

The truck was a world of contained chaos. The old diesel engine ticked as it cooled, a metallic heartbeat in the stillness of the concrete bunker they’d secured for the night. Leon and Marcus were elbow-deep in the engine bay, their voices a low rumble of technical curses. Jax was meticulously cleaning his rifle on the tailgate, a cigarette dangling from his lips. Doc was humming an old tune, sorting through vials in his medical kit.

Amidst the familiar symphony of survival, Matty’s world had narrowed to a single, profound point of focus: her safety.

“Just a routine check, Sunny,” he said, his voice softer than the hum of the fluorescents overhead. “Leon’s orders. Can’t be too careful.” It was half-true. Leon had gruffly stated everyone needed to be in top shape, but the directive hadn’t specified the trembling care Matty was now applying.

Be clinical. Be professional. She’s not a relic, she’s a person. A person you... just be professional.

He’d laid his kit out on a clean rag atop an old crate. His hands, though roughened by years in the Wastelands, moved with a physician’s deliberate gentleness, a legacy of his father’s teachings and his own innate empathy. He started with observation, his gray-green eyes missing little—the state of her nails for cyanosis, the clarity in her eyes. He noted the way the flickering light caught in her hair, and he quickly forced his mind back to the checklist.

“Tell me if anything hurts, alright?” he murmured, his fingers beginning their work. He checked the lymph nodes at her neck, his touch so feather-light it was barely there. His own breath hitched at the proximity. Just anatomy. Supraclavicular, cervical... Her skin was warm. So warm.

The embarrassment was a slow, hot flush creeping up his neck. This was different from setting a bone or stitching a gash on Finn’s arm. This was intimacy disguised as medicine, and he was woefully unprepared for the way his own heart thudded against his ribs.

When it came time to check her pulse, he gently took her wrist. His fingers settled over the radial artery, his thumb resting lightly on the back of her hand. He focused, counting the beats against the cracked face of his father’s old watch.

Sixty-five... seventy... The rhythm was steady, but undeniably quick. Elevated. Could be stress, exertion...

Then he made a mistake, or perhaps a subconscious choice. He bent his head closer, as if to listen, to see better. His dark, wavy hair fell forward, brushing his temples. The faint, clean scent of her—a miracle in the grime of their existence—filled his senses. And under his fingertips, the pulse leapt. A staccato flutter against the pad of his thumb.

Oh.

The realization didn’t come as a medical deduction. It washed over him like a warm tide, dissolving his clinical distance. A slow, gentle smile touched his lips, one that held a world of shy wonder and dawning courage. He didn’t pull away. Instead, he leaned in a fraction closer, his voice dropping to a hushed, confidential tone meant only for her.

“Your heart,” he whispered, the words full of a tenderness that felt terrifying and right. “It’s racing.”

He finally lifted his gaze from their joined hands to her eyes. His own, usually tired and kind, were now wide with an undisguisable awe, the green in them seeming deeper. In the quiet space between the truck’s metallic ticks and the distant murmur of the men, his own pulse hammered a wild, answering rhythm in his ears, a frantic drumbeat shouting what his careful words would not.

It’s because of me. Isn’t it? Please, let it be because of me.

He did not notice how, attracted by an unearthly attraction, he bent down a little quieter, holding his breath.

"Mine too."

The evening’s camp was a rare bounty: a dry cave overlooking a desolate valley, the sky bleeding into hues of bruised purple and charcoal. The remains of a small, safe fire glowed within a ring of stones. Leon and Marcus were inventorying ammunition by the cave mouth. Doc was lost in a book. Jax was sharpening his knives, his smirk a silent spectator sport.

The discovery was simultaneous, and it sparked a silent, bristling stalemate.

Finn, squatting by the fire, had a battered tin can nestled in the coals. Inside, a handful of precious wild raspberries he’d spent an hour foraging were bubbling, their sharp scent cutting through the woodsmoke. He was carefully shredding a piece of hardened honeycomb into it—a treasure bartered from a wary settlement days ago. Sweet. She likes sweet things. Matty don’t know that.

Matty, a few feet away, was using a flat piece of scrap metal as a griddle over another part of the fire. On it, two precious slices of salvaged canned peach sizzled, their sugars caramelizing. He’d sprinkled them with a pinch of precious cinnamon from Doc’s stash. Warm, soft, comforting. Finn wouldn’t think of texture.

They both looked up, their eyes meeting over the flames. Finn’s blue eyes narrowed, possessive and challenging. Matty’s gray-green gaze was steady, defensive. A snarl threatened to curl on Finn’s lip. Matty’s shoulders squared.

Then, something shifted. The unspoken truth hung between them, more potent than their rivalry: they were both doing this for her. The shared purpose was a fragile, grudging bridge.

Finn grunted first, jerking his chin toward Matty’s griddle. “Them peaches’ll burn.”

Matty blinked, then quickly flipped them with his knife. “Your berries are about to boil over,” he replied, his voice taut but without its usual edge.

A tense, silent negotiation passed in the crackling air. Finn gave a single, curt nod. Matty returned it.

What followed was a clumsy, wordless ballet of temporary truce. Finn jerked his head, indicating Matty should bring his griddle closer. Matty did, settling the metal near the coals Finn tended. Finn scooped a spoonful of his honeyed berry syrup and, with a look that dared Matty to object, drizzled it over the caramelizing peaches. The syrup hissed and smoked, filling the air with an impossibly rich, sweet aroma.

Matty watched, then surprised them both. He took one of the warm peach slices, cut it delicately, and placed a piece into Finn’s simmering berry mix. “For balance,” he murmured, almost to himself. The acid cuts the cloying. She’d appreciate the complexity.

They worked in a stiff, focused silence, broken only by the fire’s pops and the distant cry of a night bird. Finn pulled the tin from the coals. Matty slid the griddle off. On a relatively clean, chipped plate—Matty’s contribution from his pack—they assembled their offering. The warm, syrupy peaches were nestled beside the compote of honeyed berries and softened peach, the whole thing gleaming in the firelight.

It was a bizarre, beautiful mess. A testament to rivalry and, somehow, to a shared, desperate desire to please.

Finn picked up the plate, his movements uncharacteristically careful. Matty rose beside him, brushing dirt from his pants. They stood shoulder-to-shoulder for a moment, two opposing forces in a temporary, unstable alliance.

They approached her together. Finn’s confidence was back, but softened at the edges by the novelty of the collaboration. Matty’s usual gentle warmth was underscored by a spark of pride.

“Here,” Finn said, his rough voice lower than usual. He held out the plate. “Made you somethin’.”

“We... improvised,” Matty added, a shy, embarrassed smile touching his lips as he glanced from the plate to her face. “It’s... it’s not much. But it’s safe. And we thought... you might like it. I heard that guys used to give girls something nice in the middle of February," he added in a quieter, softer tone, earning an eye roll from Finn